| Synopsis: |
Jenny Carter has always led a sheltered life, protected by those she loves. Leaving school at fourteen, she is faced with no alternative but to help her mother run Pleasant View boarding house in Blackpool. To the holidaymakers it is a welcoming retreat, but to Jenny and her younger sister Violet, who struggle to keep up with their mother's intolerable demands, it feels more like the workhouse. Then Jenny meets Tom Bradshaw, an idealistic young Yorkshire lad who not only stands up to Annie's caustic remarks, but whisks Jenny straight off her feet and down the aisle.Happy though their marriage is and much as she loves their young daughter, Jenny feels she has slipped uncontrollably from dominated daughter into doting wife and mother, and there are times when she yearns for the independence she has been denied. Then Germany invades Poland, and Tom, eager for a slice of the action, joins up to fight in the Second World War.The ensuing war years provide Jenny and her sister with their first taste of freedom: Violet finds work in an aircraft factory, while Jenny takes in a little evacuee. And before long, both girls have begun to fall in love... |